Busy Time For Town Fireworks Inspector

OLD SAYBROOK — Donn Dobson bounded up the convenience store steps, walked through the door and popped the question: You selling fireworks this year?

Nope, store manager Ben Patel answered.

``I got to be too much of a pain in the butt?'' Dobson asked.

Patel smiled. Yep.

It's fireworks season, and for Dobson, the town's fire marshal, that means vigilance: checking stores to see who's selling, scouring shelves to determine whether the goods are legal, and trying to convince people that the smoldering mixes of pyrotechnics may not be the safest accompaniments to summer festivities.

``It's a problem everyday waiting to happen,'' Dobson said on a recent afternoon drive around town in search of illegal fireworks, one of the tours he does regularly throughout the summer.

It's a vigilance born out of the telephone calls he fields from nervous mothers and the close calls he's seen on the job: grass fires, the side of a house scorched, garbage bins burned to the ground after people discarded spent fireworks, their outsides cool but the insides smoldering.

He figures plenty of injuries or near-disasters go unreported, and he's hoping some prevention -- making sure the most flammable goods are off the shelves -- will help avoid a real tragedy.

This year, several stores have stopped selling fireworks altogether. But it's not hard to find consumer fireworks around town -- and, in most cases, a few illegal goods mixed in with the above-board merchandise.

The problem, Dobson believes, stems not from the stores but from vendors who may hide banned products at the back of party packs or tell store owners certain products are legal. It's easy to do, he said, because people often don't know what's allowed.

A new law signed by Gov. M. Jodi Rell this month was designed to clarify that somewhat, creating definitions of sparklers and fountains -- the two legal types of consumer fireworks. To be legal, consumer fireworks can't be aerial, can't contain more than 100 grams of pyrotechnic mixture, and can't be explosive. Labels that say ``emit showers of sparks'' signify legal products; those that say they're flammable or combustible are not.

But the labels aren't always accurate, Dobson said. And on a recent check through town, it didn't take long to find banned fireworks in several stores.

At the Food Bag, they were located on a low shelf near the door, an innocuous-looking box of two-for-$1 Drop & Pops. The boxes warned that the tiny explosives inside aren't recommended for children under 8.

``They're illegal,'' Dobson said as he lifted the carton off the shelf.

It was met with little protest.

``Thank God. I don't like them,'' the clerk told him.

As is his practice when he finds illegal goods, Dobson urged the clerk to notify him the next time the vendor showed up. That's who he's really after.

It was a similar drill at Action Sports, where Dobson joked that he was spending all his money on fireworks as he forked over $1.58 for a box of questionable Cannon brand Flashing Signals. Despite a certification-like logo on the box that the contents were ``Safe and Sane,'' a test a few days later convinced Dobson they weren't legal.

At Town Beach Store, Dobson heard the message he wanted: no fireworks this year. Patel, the manager, said he got too many concerned phone calls from parents over fireworks his vendors told him were legal.

``Better somebody go into Wal-Mart and buy,'' he said.

And sure enough, across town, Wal-Mart was offering a smattering of sparklers and other novelties with brand names like TNT. But the display this year is smaller than in the past, manager Stephen Crane said.

``I can see shortly us just getting out of it,'' Crane said. ``It's getting to be where it's just one less headache to deal with.''

Still, Dobson spied some potentially illegal goods hidden at the back of a TNT Pyroblaster variety pack. Tests with a heat gun later found that several items in the pack violated state law.

If it were left up to him, Dobson said, he'd ban all consumer fireworks. He's already testified before legislators in an effort to get the legal purchasing age pushed up to 18 from 16. But that effort failed.

And so he maintains his vigilance, trying to let people know fireworks may be fun, but they can be dangerous. Beware that the inside may still be hot before throwing them out. And keep a bucket of water nearby.

``Everybody is under the false pretense that this stuff can't hurt you because it's legal,'' he said.